Wow, Avery Rose is six years old. Where did the time go? It seems cliche, but it does seem like weeks ago I was bringing her home from the hospital, wondering what the heck I was doing.
So, this year we, again, went to Traverse City for Avery's birthday. Granny and Papa sprung for a night at the Great Wolf Lodge, which has to be her favorite spot on earth. I left work early Thursday and we drove up to TC. We met Granny and Papa at the Olive Garden (her other fave) for an early dinner. It was good we went early, because that gave us time to play at the water park before bedtime. We spent about an hour and a half there before returning to our room and putting our jammies on for Story Time. In the lobby someone read us a story, and we sand Christmas songs while "snow" fell from the ceiling. Rudy Reindeer was there for hugs afterwards, then we ate some popcorn and turned in for the evening.
The next morning (Avery's actual birthday) we were so pleased to find our elves had jumped into our bags (just wish they'd have brought the one with all my toiletries in it, which I left behind in Midland- boo) and had magically brought us donuts and blackberries. Paired with the juice boxes and oranges I brought and a strong cup of coffee for daddy and me, we waited patiently for 9 o'clock (funny sometimes how years fly by, but minutes can crawl) and suited up for the water park.
We had a wonderful time playing! There weren't very many people there, so never had to wait for a slide. It was nice this year, because both Avery and Asher are terrific swimmers from having a pool in our home; so between that and all the life guards and the lack of a crowd I felt more comfortable if I lost sight of them for a minute. Last year it seemed more chaotic and I didn't enjoy it as much. Avery, as usual, loved the slides. We even got Asher to ride down them, and he screamed the. whole. way. down. I couldn't quit laughing! Both kids got brave enough to stand under the bucket with daddy, who nearly lost his shorts every time. Papa showed up halfway through the morning and he rode the slides a million times with the kids. I swam in the lazy river with Asher for what seemed like an hour... he would swim underwater next to me as I floated on a tube, and I felt like I was swimming next to a dolphin.
That afternoon we went back to Granny and Papas house where we had a taco dinner, red velvet birthday cake and lots of presents for Avery. All in all, a very nice birthday.
We all retired, and woke up to hot bowls of "groul" and toasted dilly bread. We made the filling for the kifle by grinding the nuts and whipping the egg whites, adding the sugar and mixing together. Jamie kept the kids occupied while Richard, Mom and I rolled and filled, rolled and filled... and repeated for hours until we had over 400 little kifles. Paul hovered looking for blowouts that he could take off our hands, but we were so good at rolling he got nada. Occasionally the kids wandered in and got involved.
Then, we packed up and made the drive back to Midland, kifle in tow. I had to keep Jamie to a 3 roll maximum or he'd have eaten our share within a week. I'm so glad I'm part of the tradition. :)
